September Trio

The excellent Canadian-born drummer Harris Eisenstadt has collaborated with several artists, including Sam Rivers, Yusef Lateef, and Nels Cline. But Eisenstadt isn’t just a sensitive, inventive instrumentalist; he’s also a composer with a distinct sensibility. On 2011’s September Trio, he teams with tenor saxophonist Ellery Eskelin and pianist Angelica Sanchez to present seven of his original compositions, and the results are impressive. Eisenstadt paints lush pictures with his sticks and brushes as Eskelin carves moody melodies in the air with a yearning sound that's descended from the giants of free jazz. Sanchez is an intriguing pianist, low-key but riveting; her work seems to draw from contemporary classical as well as the jazz tradition. Much of the album is slow or medium-paced, and it's quite melodic. (Since this group has no bass player, individual lines really stand out.) There's a sense of precision and restraint, but the music is consistently lyrical and possesses an emotional edge. The band totally coheres; sometimes it’s as if the members are finishing one another's musical sentences.